Apple, Microsoft file lawsuit against Google, Samsung - The Google lawsuit cites United States Patent No. 6,098,065, won by Nortel originally, for "matching search terms with relevant advertising.". That patent was granted in 1997, while Google was founded in 1998. Nortel went backrupt in 2009, and this suit is now being brought by the consortium that bought what was left. Surely, if this patent had any relevance (and would stand up to scruitiny) Nortel, a company that would have benefitted from a big chunk of Google cash, would have filed against them sometime in the previous 11 years? Software patents are such a crock of old shit. While reading around this article, I've just read about yet another patent that I may well have "infringed" myself.

I remember, quite distinctly, seeing Musical Youth on Blue Peter. These were kids the same age as me, who were in an actual band and had a hit record, and everything. It seemed utterly exotic. Where did you get a guitar from? My parents owned the village shop and we didn't sell them. They didn't have them at the cash&carry either. So just how did you get hold of a guitar, or a set of drums, or even a tamborine? Even at thirteen it seemed like life was, in some way, passing me by.

I've lived in Birmingham for fifteen years or so, I think, and I still haven't got used to fact that it's actually enormous and if there's something I want to do, I can almost certainly just wander out of my door and find it.